Convincing Personal and Business Stories Need to be from the Heart

For me, the important paragraph is “The key to engage them is to use lots of “language of the senses,” or LOTS. When telling a story, share with us what you see, smell, feel, taste, and hear. When you trigger a sense in someone, you bring them into the story with you.”

The best way to tell any story is through audio or video. Your ability to sell a product or concept is to talk directly to your customer.

Telling a good story is essential to any project.

Saying and doing are different:

But most people simply don’t know how to do it. All of us know that the secret to success is to give people what they want or to solve a problem but implementation is hard. The same holds true for video and audio recordings.

Let someone show you the way. There are a multitude of links on this website as to telling great stories and personal histories.

The key is honesty. Tell your story the way you tell is to your spouse and friends; relaxed and passionate. Practice it yourself in front of a mirror. Good speaking is like good writing; it takes lots of revisions.

Communication must be unique to your style and to who you are. It has to be part of your natural makeup. Some us pace like angry tigers when speaking and some sit and speak quietly, thoughtfully and passionately.

Speaking from the heart:

But people can tell sincerity; they have the ability to understand when you are speaking from the heart and speaking from the art.

I (and most people) can tell a professionally groomed speaker; they are often as phony as three dollar bills.

Everyone wants to be sucked in by a good story and for it to be first-rate you have to take some risks and open people to your journey.

They have to see, feel and touch the uncertainty, smell the risk, celebrate the victories “and” they have to experience it in a fairly short journey if you are promoting a cause or business.

You don’t have to get professional advice when doing this, just practice it with trusted advisors. But having a professional guide you along the way gets powerful results and is the best use of scarce time.

Just remember, be yourself.

If you talk to someone (be they a professional or family member or friend) who tries to get you to appear to be something you’re not, discard them. Go with your natural speaking style.

We may not be the professional speaker we hear on radio or see on TV “but” you can still sway an audience in meaningful and powerful ways.